Deep compositing is an image rendering technique for generating complex images from multiple sources. Unlike “flat” images used in traditional compositing, in which each pixel includes a single pixel value, each deep pixel of a deep image can contain multiple pixel values representing contributions from objects at different camera depths. Having multiple depth bin values available to the compositor advantageously enables capabilities such as inserting atmosphere, or isolating color corrections and lighting adjustments to particular depths.
Unfortunately, however, rendered images, flat images as well as deep images, are often plagued with residual noise produced during their rendering. Although sophisticated sampling strategies can reduce the noise, avoiding it completely inside the renderer is nearly impossible. Moreover, although post rendering denoising techniques capable of producing high-quality outputs for flat images exist, none of those existing techniques can preserve depth decompositions as required for the denoising of deep images.